Archive for organizing style

The first thing you need to do is figure out your general organizational style. Even as a disorganized person you have a general organizational style. Trust me. Knowing your own personal organizational style will help you avoid choosing methods that won’t work for you.

Neat Nelly — She puts everything away out of sight, however the term neat can be questioned. She feels neat because it’s all out of sight and out of mind.

Piles Polly — She puts everything out where everyone can see it, usually in piles all over the place. She cannot find anything when she needs it.

Basket Betty — She puts everything into baskets so that they look neat and out of sight, but they are anything but neat (and maybe not even out of sight).

Understanding your organizational style will help you move forward with creating a system of organization that works for you.

Working with your personality, instead of against it, will make becoming more organized a lot simpler. So, it doesn’t matter whether or not you pile everything up, stuff everything out of sight, or have lots of baskets and bins with all your work in them. You can work with your natural inclinations to create a plan and develop a system that works for you.

If you’re still not sure about your organizational style, think for a moment about what you do when you receive a monthly bill. Do you throw it on a “bill pile”, file it away, or throw it in a basket (or drawer)? Some people just prefer to be able to see everything because they’re afraid they’ll forget something. Other people feel more accomplished if it’s all out of sight (and out of mind), while others do a mixture of the two.

Which one are you?

My personal inclination is to be a Piles Polly. I like everything where I can see it, so I don’t forget about it. My husband on the other hand is a Neat Nelly, if it is out of sight it is cleaned up. So we tend to compromise along the lines of Basket Betty, we have several “junk” drawers, but at least I get to keep the mail in a tabletop basket so I remember to pay the bills.

Now as you move forward with your office organizing plans you can know what works best for you. Don’t get a desk with lots of drawers and very little desktop if you tend to be a Piles Polly or even a Basket Betty, you want a system that allows you to have items where they can be seen and easily accessed. On the other hand if you are Neat Nelly, make sure to get a desk or workspace with plenty of drawers or storage, so that you can keep your items out of sight when you are not working with them.

Please let me know what style you most identify with in the comments below.